1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing system, a printing method, and a printing control apparatus. The present invention particularly relates to a printing system, a printing method, and a printing control apparatus used in printing a document consisting of a plurality of pages.
2. Description of Related Art
Variable printing is known as a printing technology intended for volume printing. In variable printing, a document of a large number of pages is printed out while partially exchanging printing contents in coordination with a database. Atypical type of document to which variable printing is applied is a document containing client information, in which information concerning a plurality of clients is described with respect to each client in units of specific number of pages.
If it is intended to print out a document in which information concerning a plurality of clients is described and distribute to each client a plurality of sheets of paper on which information concerning specific client is printed, it is necessary to produce booklets by breaking up the document in units of specific number of pages to be distributed to each client.
However, in producing a plurality of booklets by breaking up a document of a large number of pages in units of specific number of pages, the user has to execute a certain printing setting for producing the booklets while specifying a range of pages of the document that constitute each booklet, which can be a heavy burden to the user. More specifically, if it is to produce 100 booklets by breaking up a document consisting of 800 pages in units of 8 pages, the user has to specify the range of pages for each booklet, e.g., 1-8th page, 9-16th page, . . . 793-800th page, repeating the printing setting for each booklet for 100 times. Therefore, there is a demand for reducing the user's burden in the printing setting operation for producing a plurality of booklets by breaking up a document of a large number of pages in units of a specific number of pages.
As a technology related to this, the Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2001-353934 discloses a technology for producing a plurality of booklets by splitting a document in case when the number of pages of the document exceeds a number of pages to which bookbinding process can be applied. However, this technology is intended to produce booklets unrelated to the user's intention, and it is not intended to produce booklets consisting of a number of pages the user wants.